The purpose of Reflective Moments is to offer you a way to incorporate the spirit of Saint Angela Merici into your own lives. We hope that it enriches you spiritually.

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What are we willing to do for Mother Earth?

Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph May 2011

In the story of creation as it is told to us in the second chapter of the book of Genesis, God looked

at everything he created and found it good. This story depicts God creating human beings first and then making the rest of creation for human use.

I sometimes wonder if we humans have been too greedy in our use of the earth and her resources. Our Mother Earth has been badly wounded and needs healing. What is our responsibility? In our throw-away society, what creative activity can help save the earth? Many of us have gone to great lengths – and rightly so – to help an ailing mother. What are we willing to do for Mother Earth?

I grew up on a small family farm in southcentral Kentucky. In the springtime, my dad cleaned out the barn stables and used the manure as fertilizer for the fields and garden. For a few days when my siblings and I went outside, we held our noses and complained of “that horrible smell.” We didn’t realize that the “fertilizer” would help the garden produce the luscious vegetables our mother would later feed us and nourish the crops in Daddy’s fields. We didn’t know it then but that was our first lesson in recycling. Farmers have always taken waste and reused it to produce something

Sister Marietta Wethington, OSU

good. Other examples are how table scraps were used as food for the pigs and later returned to us as ham, bacon, and sausage, and how mothers would take the brightly colored feed sacks and sew them into dresses for their daughters.

For me these examples help me to reflect on the scripture passage that tells us God doesn’t see as we see. What we sometimes see as waste God

sees as good. What we call “scraps” and “manure,” God uses to bring new life.

Jesus prayed that “we all be one.” Could that include one with the earth as well as one with each other? I believe so.

On April 22, we celebrated both Earth Day and Good Friday. This seems very appropriate to me. Just as the material trash can be recycled into good, the “trash” within each of us can also be changed into good. God takes what is not so pleasant in us – our weaknesses, our defects, our sinfulness – and transforms them into beauty, grace, and goodness when we allow it.

May we all be good stewards of Mother Earth and of our own lives.

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For Your Reflection

An Intentional Minute...Stop and focus your attention for one INTENTIONAL MINUTE

By Marian Bennett, OSUA

SuggeSted ActivitieS: Listen to the song “Touch the Earth” by Sister Kathy Sherman, CSJ.

Take a walk outside and delight in God’s creation. Include yourself in that delight.

Make a plan to use Earth’s gifts well and to counter excessive consumerism.

Invite a child to help you plant a vegetable and flower garden. Watch the garden grow. Share the harvest with others.

When possible ride a bike or walk instead of using your car.

SEE THE SPIDER…Have you ever watched a spider spin its web?

Each web has a predictable pattern, determined by the species of spider, I think.

But what happens when a new web is needed?What does the spider do?

I’ve observed that the spider floats on the breeze, firmly attached to a single silken thread.

The spider holds tight and begins anew at the first solid place it touches.Is our faith like a spider’s web?

What do we do when circumstances hand us a challenge and dictate a change?Let us hold tight to the strong thread of our faith,

confident we will land in the place we are meant to be.

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